The First Stakeholders Regional Farmers Meeting was held at Protea Hotel in Livingstone, Zambia on 13^th to 15^th April 2011 under the theme ‘Aligning Production to Markets.’

The meeting, which was jointly hosted by the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA), the Southern Africa Confederation of Agricultural Unions ( SACAU) and the East African Farmers Federation (EAFF), was attended by representatives of farmers’ organisations and governments from the COMESA region, development agencies and implementing partners.

The meeting discussed a number of topics, including the following:

• Key challenges in the marketing of agricultural commodities;
• Agricultural standards and market access and farmers participation in standards setting;
• Models of linking small scale farmers to regional markets;
• Issues on smallholder farmer capacity;
• Models of how smallholder farmers can directly supply commodities to WFP through Commodity Exchanges;
• Smallholder farmer participation in Biotechnology.

Click here to download the complete communiqué